Question

Just thought I’d see if somebody could explain why Anders decided that this is valid…

if(...)
   //single statement
else
   ///single statement

but this is not…

try
   //single statement
catch
   //single statement

Answer 1

To quote from Framework Design Guidelines in the section about “General Style Conventions” this is said about braces:

AVOID omitting braces, even if the language allows it. Braces should not
be considered optional. Even for
single statement blocks, you should
use braces. This increase code
readability and maintainability.

There are very limited cases when
omitting braces might be acceptable,
such as when adding a new statement
after an existing singöe-line
statement is either impossible or
extremely rare. For example, it is
meaningless to add a statement after a
throw statement:

if(someExpression) throw new
ArgumentOutOfRangeExcetion(...);

Another exception to the rule is
braces in case statements. These
braces can be omitted as the caseand
breakstatements indicate the
begining and the start of the block.

What Anders thinks is subjective and argumentative, this is the recommendation.

You might also want to look at the section about bracing in the coding convention over at msdn.